Jean Weir

Passion for Freedom

The following is an interview with Jean Weir that originally appeared in issue #8 of the UK anarchist magazine 325. Weir is best known for publishing Insurrection magazine, the Elephant Editions publishing project, translating many germinal Italian insurrectionary anarchist texts, and a lifetime of anarchist struggle. We have chosen to reprint this interview for a few reasons. First, and most importantly, Weir’s lucidity is a trait unfortunately lacking in many of today’s anarchist texts. Rather than create sensationalized portrayals of struggle or romanticized images of the past, Weir opts for modesty and frankness. Secondly, Weir’s analyses of prison, insurrection, clandestinity, and anarchist publishing offer important lessons to anarchists currently setting out on the path of active revolt. These are not mere historical lessons on Italian insurrectional struggles, the failure of guerrilla warfare, or the state of Italian prisons in the mid-90s: they are provocations to engage in theoretical exploration that is inextricably tied to action. As we struggle to understand our positions as anarchists within our current and diverse contexts, we would do well to draw from all that came before and all that continues around us, not to valorize or historicize, but to sharpen our daggers for our own attacks on order and control.

We hope, as Weir says, that this publication can help “tensions that we already feel burning inside us become clearer, making it easier to gather and assimilate them in order to act.”